OPENING | Bruce Reynolds 'Speculative Archeology' and Steve Szell 'Szephyr'

Join us for the official opening of Bruce Reynolds SPECULATIVE ARCHEOLOGY and Steve Szell SZEPHYR

DATE:  Friday 4 November 6pm-8pm

PLACE:  artisan 45 King Street, Bowen Hills QLD

DETAILS:  Free event - Cash bar
Opening speech with special guest Marissa Lindquist
Live music from Passion Cactus
Exhibitions showing 5 November 2022 – 4 March 2023

MAIN GALLERY | Speculative Archaeology by Bruce Reynolds

In SPECULATIVE ARCHEOLOGY, Bruce Reynolds hijacks our attention with elements of familiarity, through his beautifully elegant and carefully crafted use of texture, motif, colour and form. Closer inspection exposes them as ambiguous, as it becomes obvious that the forms merely allude to the many layered histories they reference.  The impression is that we are well acquainted with these objects, and yet, we are not. 

Bruce Reynolds studied at the ANU School of Art, ACT, and at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne. Now based in Brisbane, his career spans more than 30 years in Australia and abroad. As an arts practitioner and an educator,

Reynolds has exhibited in Australia and overseas and contributed extensively to Brisbane’s public art landscape. His work is held in major collections including National Gallery of Australia; Queensland Art Gallery; Museum of Brisbane; Artbank; the High Court, Queensland; and HOTA. This will be his first exhibition with artisan.

"Placing oneself by the surrounding sea, I imagine decorating a newly formed vessel. With echoes of origin stories, motifs colonize surfaces even before forms are cast. Image and object are brought together and the gypsum, like chalk, is made of the calcium of crustaceans and other organisms both familiar and exotic that float and sink. Their motifs embrace the archaic and in the absence of digital technologies serve to marry ideas with the physical." Bruce Reynolds 2022

MACHINERY STREET GALLERY |Szephyr by Steve Szell

"There is nothing more satisfying than taking the time to work up an old, greyed piece of timber to reveal the bright and deep colours and patterns of seasoned timber to then turn into a living, breathing artefact like an instrument."
Steve Szell 2022

Brisbane based Steve Szell began Szephyr Guitars in 2020 as a sustainable Luthier & timber craft practice that focuses on building high quality, affordable instruments with Australian native reclaimed timbers sourced from old furniture, demolished buildings & leftover arborist slabs.

Steve is a Graduate Interior Designer and Graduate of Architecture with work ranging across the fields of design, visual art, large scale installation, music and academia. His focus remains on the material aspects of design in sustainable manners and the integration of experimental design methodology in conventional practice. Steve’s core ethos in creative practice is to produce multi- faceted outcomes that links environmental sustainability to community.

This exhibition is intended to express the material qualities of reclaimed timber through the process of refinement and care to celebrate their inherent qualities. The narrative thread of celebrating the timber through working it up from its raw, weathered state through the stages of the instrument build process to a final outcome is core to the development of producing Szephyr’s instruments.

IMAGE CREDIT: Bruce Reynolds, Ideas for Seljuk Vessel, (detail) 2022, plaster
IMAGE CREDIT: Steve Szell, Szephyr Guitar